Nicolas Roulin

• PhD
• Professor (Full) at Saint Mary's University

Job applicant faking, that is, consciously misrepresenting information during the selection process, is ubiquitous and a threat for the usefulness of various selection tools. Understanding antecedents of faking is thus of uttermost importance. Recent theories of faking highlight the central role of various forms of competition, for understanding wh...

Applicants use honest and deceptive impression management (IM) in employment interviews. Deceptive IM is especially problematic since it can lead organizations to hire less competent but deceptive applicants if interviewers are not able to identify the deception. We investigated interviewers' capacity to detect IM in five experimental studies using...

Decades of tobacco control initiatives have turned public opinion against cigarette smoking. Smokers, once considered glamorous, are now stigmatized in domains including the workplace. Extant literature lacks scrutiny of smoker stigmatization and devaluation within the job selection process, and mechanisms that lead to such outcomes. Using an exper...

The job interview is one of the most widely used assessment tools in the selection process. Despite its popularity in practice, interview outcomes can be prone to bias. Although our knowledge of stigmatizing applicant characteristics that elicit subgroup differences has grown exponentially, research continuously highlights the need for a framework...

There is ample evidence from the selection literature that job applicants engage in various forms of impression management (IM), for instance when completing personality tests or answering employment interview questions. Such behaviors can impact the selection process outcome and threaten its validity, particularly if applicants use deceptive IM. I...

Today's variety of interview formats raises the question of their interchangeability. For personality interviews, a crucial question is whether different formats are comparably robust against applicants' social desirability tendency (SDT) to ensure an accurate measurement. Using a within-subjects design in a simulated selection setting with 211 par...

Asynchronous video interviews (AVIs) are widely used in hiring, but the lack of social presence (e.g., uncertainty about the identity of evaluators) may hinder effective impression management (IM) for applicants. This study examined whether providing information about evaluators facilitates applicant IM use in AVIs, specifically ingratiation or sel...

The personnel selection field has observed the rising use of asynchronous video interviews (AVI). The current study investigates whether follow-up questions (probes) can optimize the applicant experience in AVIs. Across two experimental studies with participants recruited from Prolific, we investigated whether AVIs with probing promote applicant re...

Approximately two out of three recruiters report screening candidates’ KSAOs (knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics like personality) or hireability based on social media platforms (e.g., Facebook, LinkedIn), often referred to as cybervetting. However, various researchers cautioned against engaging in this emerging practice due to...

Structured job interviews are often built around four better question types: behavioral, situational, background, and job knowledge questions. This study provides the first comparative examination of these four question types in terms of interviewee faking and reactions. Prolific respondents (N = 150) completed an asynchronous video interview compr...

Researchers have called for faking-resistant measures of psychopathic personality that can be self-administered in high-stakes contexts (e.g., hiring). We developed and validated an implicit measure of psychopathy contextualized in workplace situations. We first detail how the measure is framed, conceptualized, and rooted in psychopathy literature....

We explored the transformative impact of ChatGPT on applicants’ responses and performance in situational judgement tests (SJTs), as well as the role played by faking-prevention mechanisms, in two complementary studies. Study 1 examined how the availability of ChatGPT influenced response content and performance of real applicants (N = 107,805), who...

Employment discrimination based on job-unrelated factors (e.g., gender, smoking status) can lead to unfair outcomes for applicants. In the present study, 400 Canadian and US hiring professionals evaluated a candidate’s resume and then cybervetted their social media page which disclosed their gender and smoking status (i.e., cigarette smoker, vaper,...

Organizations are increasingly using technology-enabled formats such as asynchronous video interviews (AVIs) to evaluate candidates. However, the personal environment of applicants visible in AVI recordings may introduce additional bias in the evaluation of interview performance. This study extends existing research by examining the influence of cu...

We explore the transformative impact of ChatGPT on applicants’ responses and performance in professional program selection tests (i.e., the Casper Situational Judgment Test). Examining a sample of real applicants (n = 107805), the findings reveal a decline in scores, and shifts in word choice following ChatGPT's release. These findings give us a be...

This cross-cultural study investigates how interviewees from 10 culturally-distinct countries differ in their use of impression management (IM) tactics in asynchronous video interviews (AVIs), and the relationship(s) between those tactics and interview performance. A total of 582 participants from ten countries () completed an 8-question AVI for a...

Asynchronous video interviews (AVIs) are a form of one-way, technology-mediated selection interview that can help streamline and increase flexibility in the hiring process and are used to hire millions of applicants per year. Although applicant reactions to AVIs in general tend to be more negative than with traditional interview modalities, AVIs ca...

Interviewees’ use of impression management (IM) in job interviews is clearly related to individual differences such as personality. However, research has paid less attention to how interviewee cognitive capacities (i.e., cognitive ability and executive functions) influence IM use, even though interviewees’ cognitive capacities and IM are theoretica...

In job interviews, applicants’ use of impression management (IM) tactics is central to our understanding of the interview process. However, while theory indicates that applicants combine IM tactics meaningfully to attempt to create specific impressions, we know little about how applicants use IM tactics in combination, and the individual difference...

Asynchronous video interviews (AVIs) have become a popular alternative to face-to-face interviews for screening or selecting job applicants, in part because of their increased flexibility and lower costs. However, AVIs are often described as anxiety-provoking or associated with negative applicant reactions. Building on theories of media richness an...

Asynchronous video interviews (AVIs) are becoming exponentially more common in the hiring landscape. Despite practical benefits to organizations, research demonstrates potential challenges for applicants, including lower performance in technology-mediated interviews, and a host of negative attitudinal reactions to AVIs. Given this, AVI companies of...

Asynchronous video interviews (AVIs) have become increasingly popular as alternatives (or complements) to more traditional face-to-face interviews. Yet, AVI research has been largely focused on applicant reactions or behaviors, and we still know very little about what influences how applicants are rated. Importantly, because AVIs afford applicants...

Conditional reasoning tests are one type of measure which may protect against the faking possible with other self-report measures. In this study, test-taker reactions and ability to identify the criterion (ATIC) for the Conditional Reasoning Test of Workplace Psychopathy (CRT-WP) were studied. ATIC ratings were unrelated to CRT-WP scores, suggestin...

We conducted two studies to investigate how cultural differences based on country of origin influence the selection process in an asynchronous video interview (AVI) context. We drew upon the GLOBE cultural value dimensions and individual measures of prejudice to examine if raters evaluate job applicants who are more culturally-dissimilar to them mo...

Cybervetting, or reviewing applicants’ social media profiles, has become a central part of the hiring process for many organizations. Yet, extant cybervetting research is largely limited to Western platforms and samples. The present study examines the three core elements of attitudes toward cybervetting (ATC - perceived justice, privacy invasion, a...

The present study examined how variations in the design of asynchronous video interviews (AVIs) impact important interviewee attitudes, behaviors, and outcomes, including perceived fairness, anxiety, impression management, and interview performance. Using a 2x2 experimental design, we investigated the impact of two common and important design eleme...

Asynchronous video interviews (AVIs) have become popular tools for applicant selection. Although AVIs are standardized, extant research remains silent on whether this novel interview format could introduce new forms of bias. Because many applicants complete AVIs from their homes, their video background could provide evaluators with information abou...

We compared self-reports or test-based assessments of personality, cognitive ability, and likelihood or tendencies to engage in organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB) from experienced workers (targets, N = 154) with one approach to rate these traits based on LinkedIn profiles using hiring professionals (panel raters, N = 200), graduate students...

Although research has long examined applicants’ use of impression management (IM) behaviors in the interview, interviewers’ IM has only been recently investigated, and no research has attempted to combine both. The aim of this research was to examine whether and how applicants and interviewers adapt their IM to one another. To answer this question,...

With organizations being increasingly multinational and multicultural, there is a need for understanding the implications of having job applicants and interviewers from various cultural backgrounds interacting in an employment interview. We propose a theoretical model for understanding how cultural values translate into preferences for, and use of,...

Although they can take on a wide variety of forms and can occur at different parts of a selection process, job interviews are perhaps the most common method used to select employees across cultures. Although research has examined best practice solutions for maximizing the utility of interviews in general (e.g., increasing interview structure; Huffc...

Research on faking behavior and underlying intentions has mostly employed an intraindividual perspective, stressing the role of individual-level predictors. Inspired by theoretical arguments (e.g., from socioecological psychology) and cross-cultural studies, we hypothesize and demonstrate that in addition to individual-level predictors, there are a...

Public Significance Statement This article provides an overview of the special issue. It introduces the 10 articles featured in the special issue, and describes important topics (e.g., accommodation, leadership, selection, and virtual teams) and timely issues (e.g., justice, racial and gender equity, Indigenous employment, and environmental concern...

Deceptive impression management (i.e., faking) may alter interviewers’ perceptions of applicants’ qualifications, and consequently, decrease the predictive validity of the job interview. In examining faking antecedents, research has given little attention to situational variables. Using a between-subjects experiment, this research addressed that ga...

Many organizations rely on social media like Facebook as a screening or selection tool, however, research still largely lags behind practice. For instance, little is known about how individuals are strategically utilizing their Facebook profile while applying for jobs. This research examines job seekers’ impression management (IM) tactics on Facebo...

Asynchronous video interviews (AVIs) are a form of one-way, technology-mediated, selection interviewing that continue to grow in popularity. An AVI is a broad method that varies substantially in design and execution. Despite being adopted by many organizations, human resources professionals, and hiring managers, research on AVIs is lagging far behi...

This study examined the linear and nonlinear relationships between applicant impression management (IM) behaviors during the interview and subsequent interview performance. We proposed that honest IM would have a nonlinear effect on interview performance, whereas deceptive IM would demonstrate a linear effect. Hypotheses were examined using a sampl...

The present research describes the development and validation of a measure of job seekers’ attitudes toward cybervetting (ATC). Study 1 involved a sample of participants completing an initial pool of items focusing on one platform (i.e., Facebook) and conducting an exploratory factor analysis (EFA). Study 2 included a confirmatory factor analysis (...

Cigarette and electronic-cigarette users (i.e., vapers) are increasingly stigmatized in both society and the workplace. We examine effects of this stigmatization in the selection process by testing whether interviewers’ negative initial impressions of smokers and vapers extend throughout the interview. We used a dual-process framework of interviewe...

Interviews are commonly used for selection but research on interview faking only gained momentum relatively recently. We review both theoretical and empirical work on prevalence, antecedents, processes, and effects of interview faking. Most applicants fake at least to some degree. Personality (e.g., Conscientiousness, Honesty-humility, the Dark Tri...

We examine applicant faking as an adaptive response to the specific environment that applicants are confronted with. More specifically, we propose that applicants fake by adapting their responses to the culture of the hiring organization so that they display the personality profile that best matches the organization’s culture. In other words, they...

The employment interview remains a unique paradox. One the one hand, decades of research demonstrates that using more structured components (e.g., question consistency, evaluation standardization) can largely improve the psychometric properties of interviews. On the other hand, although interviews are almost universally used, many interviewers stil...

Being able to identify if someone is telling the truth or lying is essential in many social situations, for instance in police interrogations or employment interviews. Unfortunately, people are generally poor at lie detection. Some researchers have argued that a small category of individuals are detection wizards who can achieve substantially highe...

Various surveys suggest LinkedIn is used as a screening and selection tool by many hiring managers. Despite this widespread use, fairly little is known about whether LinkedIn meets established selection criteria, such as reliability, validity, and legality (i.e., no adverse impact). We examine the properties of LinkedIn‐based assessments in two stu...

Applicant use of impression management (IM) tactics plays a central role in employment interviews. IM includes behaviors intended to create an impression of competence, likability, and avoid negative impressions. Applicants can influence interviewers’ impressions using both honest and deceptive IM, but measurement of IM has yet to distinguish these...

http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01294/full

Most people, at some point in their lives, experience the stress of being interviewed for a job they want. Many also face the challenge of interviewing other people. But what does the science tell us about this unique social situation? What biases are involved, and how can we become aware of them? And how can job interviews be structured so that th...

Research has examined the antecedents of applicants' use of impression management (IM) tactics in employment interviews. All existing empirical studies have measured IM in one particular interview. Yet, applicants generally interview multiple times for different positions, and thus have multiple opportunities to engage in IM, before they can secure...

Applicants’ use of faking tactics could threaten the validity of employment interviews. We examined Criterion-Based Content Analysis (CBCA), an approach used in legal contexts, as a potential indicator of interviewee faking. We also examined the moderating role of storytelling in the faking-CBCA relationship. We conducted one experimental study, wi...

Applicant impression management (IM), and especially its deceptive side (i.e., faking), has been described as a potential threat to the validity of employment interviews. This threat was confirmed by evidence of interviewers’ inability to detect (deceptive) IM tactics. Previous studies suggested that some interviewers could be better IM detectors t...

At the heart of the debate between Colquitt's and Adler's (Adler et al., 2016) camps is a disagreement about the degree to which employees can be expected to respond favorably to challenging, negative, or critical feedback. Colquitt and colleagues argue that we often try and avoid blame, select jobs that don't rate us against others, and respond un...

In the past years, several authors have proposed theoretical models of faking at selection. Although these models greatly improved our understanding of applicant faking, they mostly offer static approaches. In contrast, we propose a model of applicant faking derived from signaling theory, which describes faking as a dynamic process driven by applic...

In their focal article, Landers and Behrend (2015) propose to reevaluate the legitimacy of using the so-called convenience samples (e.g., crowdsourcing, online panels, and student samples) as compared with traditional organizational samples in industrial–organizational (I-O) psychology research. They suggest that such sampling strategies should not...

Candidates’ use of deceptive impression management (IM) during the employment interview has been found to influence employment outcomes. Unfortunately, interviewers are often unable to detect when deceptive IM is used. The current study applied research on cues to deception to the employment interview context to examine which micro- and macro-level...

Although there has been a steady growth in research and use of self-report measures of personality in the last 20 years, faking in personality testing remains as a major concern. Blatant extreme responding (BER), which includes endorsing desirable extreme responses (i.e., 1s and 5s) has recently been identified as a potential faking-detection techn...

Research indicates that in employment interviews, interviewee use of impression management (IM) can have a substantial impact on interview outcomes. IM can include behaviors intended to create an impression of competence (self- promotion), likability (ingratiation), and avoid negative impressions (defensive IM). Interestingly, IM behaviors can be b...

The negative health consequences of tobacco consumption have long been known, and decades of tobacco control initiatives have increasingly turned public sentiment against smoking. Initial anti-smoking campaigns—centered on adverse health warnings and restrictions on cigarette advertising—that followed the first warning issued by the US Surgeon Gene...

Purpose - Applicants often use impression management (IM) in employment interviews, and such tactics can considerably influence interviewers’ evaluations of their performance. Yet, little research has examined interviewers’ perceptions of such behaviors. This paper aims to examine if interviewers’ perceptions of various IM behaviors converge with a...

Employers selection practices sometimes involve reviewing applicants’ profile on social networking websites (SNWs) and invading applicants’ privacy (e.g., asking for their passwords). Applicants can be eliminated because of faux pas (i.e., inappropriate content) they post online. Yet, little research has examined factors related to faux pas posting...

Retaining valuable employees is a major issue for organizations, especially for professions characterized by shortage (e.g., nursing). It is thus important for organizations to determine factors predicting personnel satisfaction and intent to leave at various levels (i.e., organization, group, and individual). Yet, few studies of satisfaction in nu...

Applicants use résumés to demonstrate their knowledge, skills, abilities, and other personal characteristics (KSAOs) to recruiters, through education and job-related or non-job-related experiences. But research suggests that the situation for young applicants is especially competitive, since they increasingly enter the labour market with similar ed...

With the rise of mass higher education, competition between graduates in the labour market is increasing. Students are aware that their degree will not guarantee them a job and realise they should add value and distinction to their credentials to achieve a positional advantage. Participation in extra-curricular activities (ECAs) is one such strateg...

Industry surveys and media reports suggest that recruiters increasingly use social networking websites (SNWs) in the selection process, but corresponding scientific research is still limited. Using signaling theory, we examine SNWs as a new way for applicants to signal their qualities to recruiters. Results suggest that recruiters and potential app...

Recent studies about the academic–practitioner gap suggest that the nonadoption of evidenced‐based practices can be explained by their diffusion through practitioner‐oriented literature. This study extends these findings by investigating the case of the structured interview, which has not been widely adopted by practitioners despite its good psycho...

Applicants use résumés to demonstrate their knowledge, skills, abilities, and other personal characteristics to recruiters (KSAOs), through education and job-related or non-job-related experiences. But research suggests that the situation for young applicants is especially competitive, since they increasingly enter the labor market with similar edu...

Résumé: L’entretien de sélection est une situation emplie d’incertitude pour les candidats. Ne sachant pas précisément comment ils seront évalués, ils vont donc chercher à s’informer sur les entretiens, notamment via des médias comme des livres de conseils. Ces livres peuvent participer à réduire l’incertitude des candidats (1) en concrétisant le c...

Personnel selection involves exchanges of information between job market actors (applicants and organizations). These actors do not have an incentive to exchange accurate information about their ability and commitment to the employment relationship unless it is to their advantage. This state of affairs explains numerous phenomena in personnel selec...

Today’s job market is competitive, leading applicants to try and ‘‘stand out from the crowd.’’ The job interview is an ideal situation for doing so, for instance by preparing original or unique answers to traditional interview questions. This study tested empirically how an applicant providing a unique answer was evaluated relative to applicants pr...

Language and communication, especially high- versus low-context communication styles, have been shown to lead to differences in Web sites. Low-context communication provides the lowest common denominator for intercultural communication through the Internet by making messages linear, articulated, explicit, and therefore easier to understand in the a...

Web sites are a major instrument for companies to transmit information to customers and conduct transactions in business markets. Differences in Web site design and content across companies can be explained by cultural factors (mainly high- or low-context communication, individualism, and power distance), characteristics of a company's home country...

les candidats comme deux adversaires ayant des intérêts divergents et incompatibles. L’entretien est une situation non-familière et menaçante pour les candidats, ce qui peut mener au développement de ces croyances. D’un côté, les candidats doivent être préparés, être capables de se vendre durant l’entretien, même si cela signifie tricher, mentir ou...